(*The blog is no longer being updated regularly due to the civil war in Syria. Should the situation change or any breakthroughs be achieved, I will post it here*)

Summary

My sister, Jacqueline "Nicole" Vienneau, a Canadian tourist, disappeared in Syria on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at the age of 32. She was in her fifth month of a six-month solo adventure through West Africa and the Middle East. She was last seen by the desk clerk at 8:30 in the morning as she left the Cairo Hotel in Hama, two hours north of Damascus.

She definitely intended to return to the hotel as her backpack was left in her room along with the memory cards from her camera, full of photos. She also left her journals that include an entry made the night before she disappeared. Canadian police retrieved her Hotmail account email records indicating she attempted to login around 8:30 Friday night but was unable to (Syrian Internet connections are not reliable). Her last completed emails were sent Thursday night.

Nicole's guidebook was also left in her room. In the back of her Lonely Planet "Middle East" guidebook she wrote directions to a number of places in Syria that we believe she copied from the Cairo Hotel's copy of the Lonely Planet "Syria" guidebook. Nicole spoke with some guests about these locations earlier in the week and the hotel clerk indicated that on the morning she disappeared, she asked for directions to the "Beehive Houses", a local sightseeing destination, as well as Qasr Ibn Wardan (a nearby castle).

No one at these locations recalls seeing Nicole (and they are not heavily visited) and the Qasr Ibn Wardan logbook has a record of only one visitor, Amin Ben Yahia, a person of interest to us (b. 1984, Algerian/Swiss nationality, father is Abbas, mother is Monica) in hopes that he remembers something unusual about that day. UPDATE: On January 19th, 2019, Amine contacted me. He does not remember anything unusual.

Nicole preferred taking local transit, but none of the minibus drivers or locals remembers seeing her. As a foreigner, Nicole stood out in all of Syria, but particularly in Hama where the majority of women in Hama dress in robes and cover their hair. The streets from the hotel to the minibus pick-up are main streets with lots of people, even at 8:30 in the morning.

In May 2007, I flew to Syria with Nicole's fiancé Gary to re-trace her steps and meet with police and local officials. Gary spent an additional two months criss-crossing Syria searching for clues. My mother joined Gary in Syria in July 2007 and met with the Grand Mufti as well as the Minister of the Interior. She also made a personal plea on Syrian television and we put ads in the newspapers and local flyers. Gary and my mother returned to Syria in April 2008 to raise awareness and follow up on leads with officials and the police.

My mother returned to Syria with Gary for a third visit in March 2009 and we continue to work with Syrian government and police officials on the investigation.

There is up to 2,250,000 Syrian pounds ($45,000) in reward money for information leading us to Nicole.

We are currently looking for other guests at the Cairo Hotel in case they spoke with Nicole. A list is at the bottom of this page.

For pictures of Nicole and what she was wearing when she disappeared, as well as relevant personal information and summaries of the search so far, please visit:

You can always email me directly and anonymously at mattv99@hotmail.com

All comments and emails, public and private, are read immediately, but unfortunately I cannot respond to everyone. Feel free to respond in any language that you're comfortable with, though all of my responses will likely be in English.

March 31st, 2012 (Afternoon):

Today marks five years since Nicole disappeared from the Cairo Hotel or in the vicinity in Hama. Despite five years of searching, we really have no new clues as to what has happened to her, though we strongly suspect one of the hotel staff was involved.

Syria today is very different from Syria of five years ago. There are certainly no tourists in Hama anymore, and there probably won't be any going there in the immediate future either.

Hollywood tells us that stories always have an ending, but unfortunately that's just not true. In those first few weeks we were so confident we'd figure out what happened. And then as each lead dried up the worry in the back of our minds increased, "what if we never find her?". That has turned out to be the case and we may end up being one of those families still searching 20 or 30 years later. You can never really give up.

An old friend of Nicole's has been putting huge amounts of effort into finding her. He's been posting on Twitter and updating a blog with details. You can read some updates here, here, and here.

Other people continue to offer suggestions and take action. It is very difficult to keep up hope after so much time has passed. All we need is one person who knows or suspects what happens to come to us, but they'll probably be in Syria and unlikely to have access to us anymore. Hopefully one day.

"Civil unrest and demonstrations have been occurring in many Syrian cities since March 2011. There has been extensive use of force by the security forces and military in suppressing demonstrations across the country. Many casualties and fatalities have been reported and protests and violent repression are likely to continue. Security operations have involved the complete lock-down of entire towns for periods varying from a few days to a few weeks. This may take place with little warning."

Needless to say, our hopes of getting any information about what happened to Nicole have diminished greatly in the short term.

February 11th, 2012 (Morning):

Syria continues to be in the news as world opinion is slowly being swayed by the stories of what is happening. Once again, no progress on our search as we approach nearly five years since Nicole went missing. To think that at first I thought this could be resolved in five days or at worse, five weeks!

January 7th, 2012 (Afternoon):

Another month of chaos in Syria. In early 2011, the violence in Syria wasn't making the international news very frequently, but that has certainly changed. It is not surprising that we have heard nothing from Syrian officials, Canadian embassy officials, or our own contacts within Syria. This makes it difficult to move forward in the search.

Is it time to call a professional team like 1SRG

Is it time to call in the experts. You've done your best but haven't been able to find Nicole. I think you only have a certain time gap - longer and it's stale news - plus Gary is alone in Syria which is awfully stressful for him. Not to mention the stress on the rest of the family in Canada.

On Lonely Planet's site last year an American (Ryan Chicovsky) disappeared, in Laos and his family seems to have used this team (he hasn't been found but the company seem experienced in the actualities of dogs, government agencies etc.) Can you find a Canadian company that does a similar thing? A big question is did Nicole have travel insurance? If she did, have you contacted the insurance company to help?

Re: Is it time to call a professional team like 1SRG

Two excellent suggestions that we hadn't looked at. I wish we had known of 1srg a month ago!

We'll investigate the 1srg option, but it may require the Syrian government to ask for assistance, which is trickier, given the state of US/Syrian relations. And the 8-week delay makes everything harder.

I hadn't thought of checking the travel insurance. We are now following up.

Something just isn't right

Something just isn't right here (besides her being missing). She was last seen by the Cairo Hotel employee. No one saw her on the street that day? Or at the bus stop? She didn't ask directions or eat? That means she didn't leave the hotel. Or at least not far from it.

That doesn't mean the hotel staff had anything to do with it. It could have been a visitor or anyone stalking. However, I just can't get a niggling out of my head where I recall reports from travellers who had hotel employees peeping on them or otherwise harassing them. The ones I heard were in Jordan but still...it just niggles.

I wonder if any of the employees are involved with any dodgy groups like smugglers or sex traders. Any new employees? Who exactly did she have contact with.

I think you need to hire a private detective - maybe canadian to run this case. Maybe a retired police detective. They will know what adds up and what doesn't. Hire him and send him to Syria.

CBC

The CBC interview is posted online along with the other stories of the National, it does not come up right away. I believe it's the third of fourth story. http://www.cbc.ca/national/latestbroadcast.html

If she got in a car with someone she trusted...

If she got in a car with someone she trusted they probably were foreign tourist likely from Canada / US (possibly Europe). I mean if I was abroad and met Canadians/Americans, I would probably get friendly with them.The car would have been rented. Perhaps you should review the car rental records during the period when she disappeared. There aren't many car rental companies in Syria so this would not be a huge task.What about those 3 American tourists? Did anyone find them?

Re: If she got in a car with someone she trusted...

In over three weeks in Syria in March this year I never met a single tourist in a rental car. Maybe they were there but I never met anyone in a rental car - lots of guides and drivers, taxi services, tour groups, walkers, cyclists, public transporters but never a tourist driving a rental car.

Her e-mail

If I were backpacking, met someone in another town, and we found out we'd both be in Hama at roughly the same time, how would we get in touch? No phones in the rooms, don't really want to share the hotel I'm staying at, but feel there would be no harm in exchanging e-mail addresses, that way I could think on it and decide if they email, if I even want to meet up after all, you need to get into her email account Matt, it seems like a great place to see her "communication records". You mentioned you were waiting on formal letters, forget that, just find a hacker and get into her account!

Gary

Thank you for the message regarding Gary. We feel much better knowing that he is safe and sound. One must wonder how long he can last mentally however. I know Nicole and I feel a great sadness with this current situation. I hope that you find her soon. Take care of yourself and your family. We hope for the very best. You are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Auto accidents in Syria

Checking Syria News in the page titled "incidents" in Arabic, I found a disturbing number of disturbing car accidents. They happen almost on a daily basis and mind you they only report the serious ones. Did you check all hospitals. Perhaps you should try to get the officials in Syria to get you a record of all car accident casualties around Hama from early April.Did you notice how they drive over there?

Syrian Private Investigator

Maybe you could hire a private investigator in Syria(who also speaks english). Someone who knows the culture,language and how to get more information on your sister through various contacts. Someone who knows what's going on behind the scenes in Syria. And who might take a different approach than the police in finding her.

I typed "private investigators in Syria" in Google and there seemed to be some. Maybe there are some Canadian private investigators who deal with Syrian investigators and they work together. Just an idea.

Re: Syrian Private Investigator

- I think you need a contact in Syria, an investigator, someone you trust or someone Government, they needs to keep their ears open for news.

- I thought her diary was found outside? Surely this is the place to start investigating as no one would leave their diary. I think thoughts of travelling all over places without dedicating more time at this initial location, is a good idea.

- Perhaps you could write another Digg plug?

- What about a reconstruction, using someone who looks similar to your sister and visiting the spots she was confirmed to have visited. At the same time get the press to follow it and hand out flyers.

- Why not make the flyers as Business Cards, big sheets of paper are easy to lose/throw away whilst a business card with her photo/details on are more likely to be stored in a wallet.

GARY: Use Different ISP in syria

There are several ISP's in Syria, the best can be accessed using SAWA orAYA internet cards, you buy a SAWA card then you configure your browser to use the user-name and password written on that card (Direct access cards with/without subscription)

Re: Canadian Police

While it sometimes feels that way, the RCMP (Canadian National Police) are bound by international conventions regarding investigations in other sovereign states. The Syrians aren't allowed to send people into Canada, and thus we can't send Canadian police into Syria. The Canadian government is similarly restricted.

That being said, both agencies have assisted as best they can, especially the Foreign Affairs staff in Damascus and the Ambassador to Syria.

People at work

Hey Matt, now that you've been back at work for a bit, how about saying something like this when people ask for an update: "Thanks for your concern. I've realized that it's better if I don't talk about it at work - it's the one break I have from focusing on it. I update the blog regularly so you can find the latest there if you want."

The people you work with genuinely care, and want to help. So they might feel badly to learn later that you didn't want to talk about it there. So, you owe it to yourself and to them to tell them what you need here.

You could even send an email to the office... couple it with "Now that I've been back for a bit, I'd like to thank you all for your incredible support..."

BTW, I do know what you mean on wanting the break there. When my sister was in the final stages of her battle with cancer, and then when she passed, I really didn't want to talk about it there - it was my oasis of sanity. Yet the caring the people at work exhibited was one of the things I was most grateful for. It's a balancing act, but it's ok to tell people what you need.